Improved Trip
by Aeanagwen
Summary: Two soldiers defend their post from an invasion of adventurers. Or, A Defense of the Inherent Humanity of Guards.


_Tower Nine log entry, third day of Gath:_

 _First shift passed with no unusual incident._

 _Second shift intercepted party of three adventurers attempting to cross over the wall illegally; claimed past grievance with Lord Estair. Party defeated with assistance from Tower Ten, accounting as follows: one death, one escape, one capture. Prisoner turned over to Captain Ira with group from Gamoran Gate._

 _Third shift passed with no unusual incident._

* * *

"So you don't think there's anything to it?" Tension wound through Ardsvig's—Vicky's—voice, concern wrapped up in resolve. No fear, though, which was both reassuring and a little unnerving.

Li-Ren shrugged. "Until it pulls one of us in, it's just another nightmare. I've been writing mine down and burning them. I think it helps. We could try to salvage some of Tower Eight's ink if you want to try it."

Vicky hummed consideration, her pace on their rounds even and steady. Li-Ren left her to her thoughts, turning her attention out to scanning the wastes. They looked calm today, drifts of dust blowing in the mid-distance; whatever strange beasts stalked the place at night never ventured out in the daylight. The odd arrow, now, fired by some invisible, deeply undedicated assailant—those could come at any time.

Ahead of them, in the distance, Tower Ten's flag fluttered a hazy blur of colors. The quarter-mile to their neighboring watchpost stretched out straight and empty; the soldiers there must have gotten a late start. Li-Ren filed the thought away—it might or might not be worth a note in the log at the end of the day, but it was too early to say just yet.

"I'll leave it alone for now," Vicky decided. "No point in worrying everyone if it's just the wall trying to get under my skin."

Li-Ren nodded—then turned her head as her ear caught the sound of a clink of armor out of sync with their own tread. "Wait." She gestured with her longspear to Vicky, then turned towards the edge of the wall, leaning over.

She'd not misheard. About a hundred feet ahead, on the side of the wall—the _eighty-foot sheer wall—_ three people were climbing using no rope or pitons, fingers finding holds where Li-Ren knew for a fact there were none. A man in chainmail was in the lead, followed by two women—one wearing leather, the other simple traveler's clothes. The ugly certainty rose in the back of Li-Ren's mind.

 _Adventurers._

"Halt and declare yourselves!" she called down to them.

Beside her, Vicky pulled her shortbow loose and nocked an arrow. "If you have business in Vonkar Duvass, please use the main gate!" She added, ever polite, "This is Tower Nine—the gate is just a few miles further on!"

The invaders came on; the shot Vicky fired bounced away from a barrier that flared to life and then vanished again. The man in the lead looked up at them and grinned, dark hair over a handsome face.

At their current speed, they'd be over in seconds. Li-Ren bolted into a run.

She reached the group just as the man vaulted himself over the edge of the wall. He drew a shortsword that burst instantly into an ominous red glow and looked over Li-Ren and, lagging behind in her heavier armor, Vicky.

"Just two!" he called back to his companions, moving towards her. "This should be quick!"

The two women made their way over the edge behind him; the one in leather armor moved to follow him, but shied back at another shot from Vicky, which glanced off the stones with a spark.

Anger churned in Li-Ren's stomach, tight and cold. The man was better-equipped than her, that much was obvious: while Ekaterina's spear was masterfully made, it was certainly no enchanted blade. More damning, he and his group had made it across the wastes, somehow, looking none the worse for wear. And to top things off, the second woman was chanting, raising her hands, and the closest counter Li-Ren had for _that_ was sleeping off her night shift back in the tower.

"I'll only tell you once more," she told the man, raising her spear. "Lay down your weapons and state your business." She shifted her feet beneath her. There would only be one _good_ chance...

The man laughed and moved towards her, lifting his red blade. Li-Ren narrowed her eyes and ducked her tall frame down behind her spear, driving towards him. She turned her shoulder into the impact, a ringing of metal that rattled through her bones, but he'd been expecting a slash with her spear, not an all-out charge, and his step faltered before her. She sidestepped around as he fell up against the wall, and, still turning, hooked the shaft of the spear behind his knees.

She caught only the briefest sideways glance at his expression, a rictus halfway through the shift from smug confidence to blank terror, before he went over.

" _Rudy!_ " One of the women's voices raised in a scream, but soaring over it, louder, rang the clear clarion of a watchtower bell.

Li-Ren spun to a stop facing the two remaining attackers, her spear raised and ready, with Ardsvig charging into place behind her.

* * *

Later, rather considerably so, after they'd both given their reports and the riders from the main gate had taken the wizard into custody and sent a party into the forest after the other warrior, Vicky plopped down onto the first of the tower's two cots. Out of her armor and in her nightgown, she turned softer, more easily touched to sympathy. She sighed as she tucked the magic sword under her pillow; the pink haze the sword had been emitting (changed from its prior wicked red moments after coming into her care) faded when she removed her hand from it.

Li-Ren, sitting cross-legged on the other cot and finger-combing the kinks of a daylong, tight braid out of her hair, tossed her companion a brush in an easy underhand. Vicky caught it and set to using it with a frown. Li-Ren let her stew on her words, comfortable in the silence as the other, not for the first time, wrestled with her paladin's conscience.

"I feel bad for them," Vicky said at last. "If they'd just stopped to tell us what they wanted..."

Li-Ren didn't shrug, because she liked Vicky, and respected her moral fiber. She hummed instead, a noncommittal noise.

"Do you think they're right?" her friend continued, eyes troubled as she brushed out her thick blonde hair. "About Lord Estair?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Li-Ren replied, tone even. "But he's a citizen of Vonkarr Duvass now."

"So he just gets away with it?"

"That would have been a decision for the council to make." _Now_ Li-Ren shrugged, and looped her hair into a loose knot. "If they'd bothered to come to the gate and present their problems like law-abiding folk instead of trying to murder their way to the capital so they could kill him in his bed."

"His coffin, I think," Vicky corrected absently. "Do you think they would have even had a chance? I mean, the council really likes him..."

"He pays his taxes," Li-Ren answered, voice dry. "And he never drinks from anyone who doesn't want it." She breathed a short sigh through her nose and shook her head. "Vicky, I'll be honest. That fighter today was _laughing_ about how easy it would be to kill us. I don't really care how noble their reasons were."

"I think a lot of it was probably the sword." Vicky spared the sheathed weapon under her pillow a glare, but it dissolved quickly back into her look, which Li-Ren was getting quite familiar with, of deeply-felt responsibility. She handed back the brush and tucked herself in, gnawing at her lip.

Li-Ren returned the brush to her backpack and leaned up against the wall, considering her friend. Finally, she offered, "Our leave's coming up next month. They won't even have held a trial yet by then—if you're worried about it, why not get involved? Ask to see the records, make sure it's going fairly."

Vicky glanced up in surprise. "You think they'll tell me anything?"

"You'll have earned your ring by then. They have to provide information like that to any citizen who puts in a request."

Vicky nodded thoughtfully once, then more emphatically. "That's a good idea," she murmured, clearly already lost in thought about it.

Li-Ren hummed again, stretching out on the bed and tugging her blanket over her legs.

"Do you know where to go, to put in requests like that?" Vicky asked, burrowing up to the edge of the bed and turning to look at her.

"Mm-hm." She'd put in enough of them looking for information about poor Rensa, after all. She soothed a mental palm over the old, small sting of pain for her husband-past, and closed her eyes. It had been an extremely long day, and their next shift would be in a not at all extremely long night.

Li-Ren flicked one eye open at the thought, and found Vicky still fidgeting with her bedding, worrying at her problems like a determined hound. Admirable, but impractical.

Li-Ren reached a hand out to her. "Vicky."

"Huh?" Vicky took it on instinct, her sword-calloused fingers closing over Li-Ren's own, which were worn hard and smooth by years of leatherworking.

"Get some rest," Li-Ren ordered her with low-voiced firmness, and squeezed her fingertips.

"Right. You're right." Vicky sighed, closing her eyes and squeezing back. "Good night, Li-Ren."

Li-Ren traced a thumb over her friend's knuckles before she drew away.

"Goodnight."

END

* * *

NOTES: Every debate I've ever had regarding the usefulness of fighter feats was made up for in one perfect—nay, sublime—moment, where I one-shotted a fighter two levels higher than me via canny use of the Improved Trip feat. Also, I'd been playing games more than long enough by this point to have a good sense of humor about what a pain in the ass adventurers can be to legitimate authority. Hence this sequence, where this border watch soldier was not about to be a speedbump to some jackass with a magic sword who thought his fighter levels made his life worth more than the unskilled goobs he was so clearly expecting.


End file.
